He notes, regarding scientists who mysteriously disappear after they start muttering that Darwinism is bullshot or something similar,

The University of Kentucky chose to pay a $125,000 settlement to Gaskell, now at the University of Texas, after Gaskell’s attorneys released records of e-mail traffic among the faculty hiring committee. Seeking a scientist to head UK’s observatory, professors complained that Gaskell was “potentially Evangelical,” while a lone astrophysicist on the committee protested that Gaskell stood to be rejected “despite his qualifications that stand far above those of any other applicant.”This is no isolated incident. An enormous, largely hidden transformation has taken place in what we mean when we speak of “science.” For centuries, the free and unfettered scientific enterprise was fueled by a desire to know the mind of God. “The success of the West,” writes historian Rodney Stark in his important book The Victory of Reason, “including the rise of science, rested entirely on religious foundations, and the people who brought it about were devout Christians.” Now, increasingly, voicing such a desire is likely to get you excluded from the guild of professional scientists.

For years, I’ve tracked the stories that come out regularly about scientists of impeccable credentials whose religion-friendly beliefs proved injurious to their career. In some fields, notably biology and cosmology, Christians who voice doubts about Darwinian theory pay a particularly high price.

That’s because other Christians have bought into big ticket irrelevance and don’t care.

If that ever changes, here’s how you will know: Read More ›

A friend, watching a serial thriller, The Oxford Murders, jotted down this interesting bit of dialogue between a professor who holds the Darwinist view of the brain (shaped for fitness, not for truth) and a design-based one (design in mathematics is real, and the brain is designed to apprehend it):

Elijah Wood is sitting in a lecture hall listening to a professor discuss the significance of Wittgenstein and the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

Professor: There is no way of finding a single absolute truth, an irrefutable argument that might help to answer the questions of mankind. Philosophy, therefore, is dead. Because “Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent.”

[Elijah Wood raises his hand]

Professor: Oh, it seems that someone does wish to speak. It appears you are not in agreement with Wittgenstein. That means either you have found a contradiction in the arguments of the Tractatus, or you have an absolute truth to share with us all.

Wood: I believe in the number Pi.

Professor: I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you. What was it you said you believed in?

Wood: In the number Pi, in the Golden Section, the Fibonacci Series. The essence of nature is mathematical. There is a hidden meaning beneath reality. Things are organized following a model, a scheme, a logical series. Even the tiny snowflake includes a numerical basis in its structure. Therefore, if we manage to discover the secret meaning of numbers, we will know the secret meaning of reality. Read More ›

Recently, I encountered two stunning cell animations which serve to highlight the sheer beauty, magnificence and power of intelligent design. Those among us who have been in ID circles for some time will undoubtedly recognise much of the first. It is a compilation of clips which have been used in ID multimedia, put together in stunningly elegant fashion with an inspirational new background soundtrack. A number of months ago, Pigliucci and Boundry expressed their strong dislike of machine metaphors in science (see also Paul Nelson’s remarks on this statement here). If you recall, Pigliucci and Boundry said that, …if we want to keep Intelligent Design out of the classroom, not only do we have to exclude the ‘theory’ from the Read More ›

Here’s Kathy Weston (Science, February 04, 2011) on, among other things, the surprising importance of networking – unless you have already got a Nobel prize:

My initial conviction — essential for anyone who wants to make it as a scientist — that I could really make a difference, maybe even win a few prizes and get famous, eroded when I realized that my brain was simply not wired like those of the phalanx of Nobelists I met over the years; I was never going to be original enough to be a star. This early realization, combined with a deep-seated lack of self-confidence, meant that I was useless at self-promotion and networking. I would go to conferences and hide in corners, never daring to talk to the speakers and the big shots. I never managed, as an infinitely more successful friend put it, “to piss in all the right places.”

[ … ]

What could I have done to check my descent into mediocrity? I should have put aside my fears of looking dumb and got on with the networking stuff anyway. And — very importantly — I should have found myself a mentor. Every scientist needs someone in a position of power who has faith in his or her abilities, to provide advice and do a bit of trumpet-blowing on his or her behalf. I should have taken more scientific risks, gone for bigger stakes, and thought harder about direction. Finally, I should have followed my instincts and quit my job before it quit me — but I was hampered by an exaggerated terror of being labeled a failure. (In fact, none of my friends and family seems to care a hoot about my fall from grace, and of course I should have known that all along.)

Much food for thought here, on women in the competitive world of science. Read More ›

#1 Evolution, A Theory in Crisis I was arguing with a (yes, Christian) friend named Dave, about “evolution,” and told him that science had proven that in the primordial seas, once upon a time, a self-replicating molecule came about, and then random changes filtered through natural selection eventually produced all of life. This is what I was taught all my life, having grown up in an academic community infested with “scientists” who told me that any other interpretation of origins was evidence of mindless religious fanaticism. Dave said, “Don’t trust me, read Michael Denton’s book.” I read it in two days, and exclaimed to myself: “Unholy Crap, I’ve been conned!” (By the way, as best I can figure, Denton is Read More ›

Rabid ID-hater Larry Moran offers some insights that sound almost like the founding book of Intelligent Design: The Mystery of Life’s Origin. Sometimes the truth is so obvious even Larry Moran has to concede it. Moran writes in: More Prebiotic Soup Nonsense The problem is that most scientists are not thinking critically about the origin of life. There are several possibilities and none of them are particularly convincing. However, the Primordial Soup Hypothesis has a number of glaring weaknesses that need to be addressed honestly and it doesn’t do anyone any good if scientists sweep these weaknesses under the rug. HT: Mike Gene

Here: Srivastava had been hooked by a different sort of lure—that spooky voice, whispering to him about a flaw in the game. At first, he tried to brush it aside. “Like everyone else, I assumed that the lottery was unbreakable,” he says. “There’s no way there could be a flaw, and there’s no way I just happened to discover the flaw on my walk home.” And yet, his inner voice refused to pipe down. “I remember telling myself that the Ontario Lottery is a multibillion-dollar-a- year business,” he says. “They must know what they’re doing, right?” Oh yes, Mohan, that’s something you can count on for sure. The government around here knows what it’s doing. Or someone knows what they’re Read More ›

Some have described the survey as shocking. The authors of the report are gloomy about their findings. The perceived problem is this: evolutionists have won court cases bearing on the teaching of evolution in schools; state curricular standards have been revised to reinforce the status of evolutionary theory in biology – but despite all this, “considerable research suggests that supporters of evolution, scientific methods, and reason itself are losing battles in America’s classrooms”. The problem is that only 28% of teachers are forthrightly explaining evolutionary biology. The situation is deemed to “expose a cycle of ignorance in which community antievolution attitudes are perpetuated by teaching that reinforces local community sentiment”. The recalcitrant teachers are “hindering scientific literacy in the United Read More ›

2011 got off to an exciting start with the announcement of Kepler-10b, the first rocky planet ever discovered outside our solar system. The announcement was widely expected. Last August, a NASA scientist referred to 140 candidates for rocky planet status and now, it appears, they have a confirmed result. The discovery was announced at the a meeting of the American Astronomical Society by Nasa’s Kepler team, accompanied by a press release. Richard Kerr, writing in Science, pointed to the significance of the find: “Astronomers have announced the discovery of an extrasolar planet not much larger than Earth – the smallest exoplanet yet found. Although the world orbits too close to its sun to sustain life, the finding is a milestone Read More ›

Here’s Richard Dawkins, as a friend puts it, “coming out … as a religious bigot”  in analyzing the Martin Gaskell case (“potentially evangelical” astronomer settles for $100K+): The University of Kentucky has caved in and agreed a settlement, out of court, with the allegedly creationist astronomer Martin Gaskell. …[ … ] If Martin were not so superbly qualified, so breathtakingly above the other applicants in background and experience, then our decision would be much simpler. We could easily choose another applicant, and we could content ourselves with the idea that Martin’s religious beliefs played little role in our decision. However, this is not the case. As it is, no objective observer could possibly believe that we excluded Martin on any Read More ›

Via this: Here’s what atheist evolution gurus think of Christian Darwinists: I, at least, think the NCSE shouldn’t take the theological position that faith is consistent with science. And the NCSE should limit its discussion about faith to saying that there are a variety of views about the consilience of science and faith and somebody in conflict should consult his/her minister. People like Larry Moran, P.Z., and I have been saying this for years, but it doesn’t seem to have penetrated Josh’s consciousness. “Josh” is a professional Darwin lobbyist who carries out boss Eugenie Scott’s dictum that a dog collar is worth two white coats, when working the crowd. The inimitable Jerry Coyne, attack by under-Darwin lobbyist Josh, roars back: Read More ›

Here is the “Edge World Question Center”, a leading materialist think tank, with 2011’s Question: THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER James Flynn has defined “shorthand abstractions” (or “SHA’s”) as concepts drawn from science that have become part of the language and make people smarter by providing widely applicable templates (“market”, “placebo”, “random sample,” “naturalistic fallacy,” are a few of his examples). His idea is that the abstraction is available as a single cognitive chunk which can be used as an element in thinking and debate. The Edge Question 2011 WHAT SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT WOULD IMPROVE EVERYBODY’S COGNITIVE TOOLKIT? The term ‘scientific”is to be understood in a broad sense as the most reliable way of gaining knowledge about anything, whether it be the Read More ›

An interesting paper published in Nature by Evgenia et al. documents the ability of the DNA double helix to exist in a functional alternative form for 1% of the time, called an “excited state.” What does this mean for neo-Darwinism? What is particularly remarkable is that the base-pairs present in these alternative forms show the ability to break apart and come together again to form stable structures which are non-characteristic of Watson-Crick base-pairing (called “Hoogsteen base pairs”). While these Hoogsteen base pairs have been observed before in instances where DNA has been subjected to damage or bound to drugs, this is the first time where such Hoogsteen base pairs have been observed under normal circumstances. Read More>>>

Man demonstrates the ease of proving the existence of French fries. Photo by James Heilman, MD Along the lines of religion and health, a friend absolutely insists that I write about this: From a medical perspective, an obese person has accumulated enough body fat that it can have a negative effect on their health. If a person’s weight is at least 20% higher than it should be, he/she is generally considered obese. If your Body Mass Index (BMI) is between 25 and 29.9 you are considered overweight. If your BMI is 30 or over you are considered obese.[6] The term obese can also used in a more general way to indicate someone who is overweight.[7] Two of the major risk Read More ›